Palin: A True Bushie, Abuse of Power and All

By Robert Parry
September 1, 2008

You have to admire the Republican chutzpah. Still confronting a national scandal about packing the Justice Department with “loyal Bushies,” they pick a vice presidential candidate who – in her two executive jobs in Alaska – ousted top law-enforcement officials because they were insufficiently loyal or not malleable enough.

One of those firings has put Gov. Sarah Palin at the center of an ongoing legislative investigation that presumably will require her to testify about whether she was behind efforts by her husband and senior staff to pressure the state’s public safety commissioner to fire her ex-brother-in-law from the state troopers.

When the commissioner, former Anchorage police chief Walter Monegan, refused to go along, he was summarily ousted by Palin without much explanation.

Unless the Republicans can figure out a way to block Palin’s sworn deposition, she will have to either admit that she used her political influence to wage a family vendetta or she must face the risk that her continued denials of involvement will be contradicted by her own staff or by some other evidence.

However, if Palin admits that she did use her government office to punish a personal enemy – or that she fired the public safety commissioner because he refused to join in her family feud – the Republicans may have trouble continuing to sell Palin as a reform-minded governor.

Instead, Palin would appear to fit more neatly with Bush administration operatives who engineered the firing of nine U.S. Attorneys in 2006 and who employed ideological litmus tests in deciding who to hire for career jobs at the Justice Department.

As Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, famously put it: the motive for purging the federal prosecutors was to eliminate those who were deemed not “loyal Bushies.”

Some of the U.S. Attorneys, such as New Mexico’s David Iglesias, had balked at political pressure before Election 2006 to bring what the prosecutors considered flimsy voter-fraud cases against prominent Democrats.

Now it appears that Sarah Palin shares the Bush administration's view about putting cronies in key law-enforcement jobs, making hers act like “loyal Palinistas.” As mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla and as governor of Alaska, she fired two top law-enforcement officials when they didn’t show sufficient loyalty or obedience to her.

Ousting the Chief

In 1996, after winning the election to be mayor of Wasilla then with a population of about 5,000, Palin sought to oust six department heads because they had signed a letter supporting the previous mayor, their old boss. Palin ultimately fired two of them, including the police chief.

Wasilla’s ousted police chief, Irl Stambaugh, sued Palin in 1997 for alleged contract violation, wrongful termination and gender discrimination The police chief claimed Palin fired him not for cause but for being disloyal and because he was a man whose size – 6 feet and 200 pounds – intimidated her.

However, a federal judge dismissed Stambaugh’s lawsuit.

So, having escaped any serious damage for punishing Wasilla’s police chief for a supposed lack of political loyalty, Palin had little reason not to throw her weight around when she became Alaska’s governor in December 2006.

By then, Palin was deeply involved in her family’s vendetta against her sister’s ex-husband, trooper Mike Wooten. Through complaints to his superiors, Palin already had helped engineer Wooten’s five-day suspension from the state police earlier in 2006 for various examples of personal misconduct.

In January 2007, a month into Palin’s term, her husband, Todd, invited Palin’s new public safety commissioner Monegan to the governor’s office, where Todd Palin urged Monegan to reopen the Wooten case. After checking on it, Monegan informed Todd Palin that he couldn’t do anything because the case was closed.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Monegan said that a few days later, the governor also called him about the Wooten matter and he gave her the same answer. Monegan said Gov. Palin brought the issue up again in a February 2007 meeting at the state capitol, prompting his warning that she should back off.

However, Monegan said Gov. Palin kept bringing the issue up indirectly through e-mails, such as comparing another bad trooper to “my former brother-in-law, or that trooper I used to be related to.”

Monegan also began getting telephone calls from Palin’s aides about trooper Wooten, including from then-chief of staff Mike Tibbles; Commissioner Annette Kreitzer of the Department of Administration; and Attorney General Talis Colberg.

Questioning ‘the Process’

Colberg acknowledged making the call, after an inquiry from Todd Palin about “the process” for handling a threatening trooper, and then relaying back the response from Monegan that the issue had been handled and nothing more could be done.

Monegan also told the Post that he warned each caller about the risk of exposing the state to legal liability if Wooten filed a lawsuit.

However, Todd Palin continued collecting evidence against Wooten and lobbying for his dismissal. The governor’s husband acknowledged giving Wooten’s boss, Col. Audie Holloway, photos of Wooten driving a snowmobile while he was out of work on a worker’s compensation claim.

Alaska’s Deputy Attorney General Michael Barnhill told the Post that a member of the governor’s staff, personnel director Diane Kiesel, also made at least one call to Col. Holloway about the snowmobile incident. [Washington Post, Aug. 31, 2008]

On July 11, 2008, Palin abruptly fired Monegan, saying only that she wanted to take the public safety department in a different direction.

Monegan then went public with his account of the mounting campaign against Wooten from the governor’s family and staff. Monegan told the Anchorage Daily News that Todd Palin showed him the work of a private investigator, who had been hired by the family to dig into Wooten’s life and who was accusing the trooper of various misdeeds, such as drunk driving and child abuse.

Though Palin insisted she wasn’t involved in the pressure campaign, a review by the Attorney General’s office found that half a dozen state officials had made about two dozen phone calls regarding Wooten.

A tape recording of one conversation – between Palin’s chief of boards and commissions Frank Bailey and police Lt. Rodney Dial in February 2008 – revealed Bailey saying, “Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads, ‘Why on earth … is this guy still representing the department?’”

Expanded Investigation

On Aug. 2, the state legislature launched its own investigation into whether Palin “used her public office to settle a private score.” A bipartisan panel appointed special prosecutor Steve Branchflower to investigate and report back in a few months.

After Palin learned of Branchflower’s appointment, she questioned whether the investigation would be fair and objected to a comment from Democratic state Sen. Hollis French about the possibility that the case might lead to the governor’s impeachment.

Palin’s spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said, "Publicly elevating this to 'impeachment' raises doubts as to how fair a process some senators may intend for this to be." [Anchorage Daily News, Aug. 2, 2008]

However, with Palin now Sen. John McCain’s choice to be the next Vice President of the United States – and with much of the national news media hailing McCain’s “bold” choice of a fellow “maverick” and “reformer” – it’s unclear how far the state investigation will be allowed to go.

Still, there is a risk to McCain’s campaign that a deposition will either draw out from Palin an admission that she abused her office to pursue a personal vendetta or she will put herself at risk of having a sworn statement contradicted by others.

For a Republican Party that impeached – but couldn’t ultimately remove – President Bill Clinton for lying about a sex act, there might be some discomfort about having to justify any false statements by Sarah Palin.

But the Bush administration has demonstrated how well it knows how to frustrate investigations into Republican wrongdoing. For seven years, the administration has deployed its expansive claims of executive privilege and other obstructive tactics to thwart all kinds of fact-finding, including the probe into the firing of the nine U.S. Attorneys.

Presumably, a similar cloak of protection will now descend around Sarah Palin’s shoulders.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

How To Lie Like A Rug and Get Away With It...

By Stephen Pizzo
Truth can be a cruel mistress. Sometimes a Lorrena Bobbit kind of cruel mistress. As such truth must be treated with both care and suspicion.

I know this runs contrary to what your parents, teachers and ministers may have taught you, that telling the truth is always the right thing to do.

Not so.

You should, of course, always tell any truths that are either harmless which benefits you. That's a no-brainer.

But there are circumstances when telling the truth can get you and/or your friends in a lot of trouble. At times like that it's perfectly logical to do whatever is necessary to avoid telling truth.

That's the purpose of this primer. Think of it as, “Truth-telling 2.0 – A Guide For Adults and Public Officials.”

In our nitpicking times you may someday find yourself in legal jeopardy. Say you've done something wrong (as in “illegal”) and you are about to be put oath and asked about it. You've going to have to swear to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

But you know that if you live up to that oath there's going to be hell to pay for it. Only a fool would voluntarily step up, tell the truth and himself or herself in jail. (Okay, you may be a crook. But you're no fool.)

So what to do?

I am happy to report that there are ways out of this jam. But you have to employ them skillfully and without a hint of hesitation or embarrassment. ,

Under such circumstances, the last thing you want to do is to start coughing up the unvarnished truth. Still, the worst thing you can do though is just cook up a bunch of outright lies. Lies can be disproved with stuff called “evidence.” So you need to avoid concoction lies.

While lying is your only way out, it's how you lie that will make the difference between getting away or getting a bunk above some guy with “Mad Dog” tattooed on his forehead.

There are four basic techniques to address your little problem:

1) Try to avoid taking the oath

Say, Congress wants to question you under oath about something they think you did.

Pretend to be offended by the implication that, unless put under oath, you may lie. ( How dare they! etc. etc.)

Tell them you'd be happy to talk to them any time they want, at their convenience, at your office. Your secretary will provide coffee and pastries and they can ask as many questions as they want about anything they want. (Make sure the press knows about this "offer.")

But – and this is critcally important – besides not being put under oath, you also don't want a transcript made of your answers. Explain that you want the conversation to be open, frank and relaxed, and feel and that a transcriber would cause people to “pull their punches,” and stifle the kind “openness that can put all these groundless accusations to rest once and for all.”

The real reason, of course, is that the last thing you want is a transcript of your answers, since you know you're guilty and that it's almost certain your answers won't exactly jive with subsequently discovered “facts” and the testimony of others.

When such “contradictions” materialize – and you know they will -- you need to be able to “deny ever saying anything like that,” and be able to accuse your interrogators of “twisting” your words and “taking them out of context.” Without a certified transcript of your original testimony, they'll be screwed. (Better them than you.)

To review:
- No oath means no perjury.
- No transcript means not having to “amend” your earlier answers to fit newly revealed “facts.”


2) Seek refuge in “The Fuzz Zone.”

If gambit #1 doesn't pan out, and you are forced to testify under oath, prepare well ahead of time. In particular spend some quality time with your attorney going over what “facts” are okay to remember and which you need to “forget.”

(Noteworthy: Since your attorney can never be forced to rat on you, this is one time during the process you need to break down and tell the truth. Your attorney can then help you decide which truths can free you and which will land you in the slammer should you “remember” them under questioning.)

But you must deploy this tactic selectively to avoid damaging your credibility.

For example, let's say you are asked this kind of question:

“How long have you served as (insert your job title or position here)?

Consider softball questions like that as an opportunity to prove your truthful nature by answering them honestly. Doing so will show that “you're not afraid of the truth.”

But, there are questions that you cannot answer truthfully without putting yourself in legal jeopardy.

For example, say you are confronted by a document key to the allegations against you:

Is This your signature on this document?our signature is on this document. Did you read it before you signed it?”

Here is where to dive for cover in the “Fuzz Zone.”

“Yes, that's my signiture. But I sign a lot of documents during any given day. Aides prepare them, bring them to me, provide me a summary of what they involve and, unless something raises a red flag, I sign them. Some times I read them, but often I do not. I just scan them and sign them. If I read every document put in front of me all day that's all I'd get done. In this regard, while that is my signature, I have no independent recollection of this document.”

The Fuzz Zone, you see, is where memory “fails” you. It's your ultimate legal redoubt, a safe place where you can lie under oath with near complete impunity.

When asked a question that requires forgetfulness you gain entry to the Fuzz Zone with answers like this:

“I have no particular recollection of that meeting.”
“I don't recall that conversation.”
“I have no independent recollection of that.”
“I do not believe I said that.”
“I don't recall making that remark.”
“I have no memory of seeing that memo.”

Shouldering Responsibility without Shouldering Guilt

If you were the head of an agency or organization at the time of the matter being investigated you can still enter the Fuzz Zone, but must do so with greater care. In particular you need to avoid answers that make it appear you are trying to avoid responsibility for things that happened under your command. When faced with a question where forgetfulness may lead to such suspicions, be proactive -- assume responsibility first, then “forget.”

“As the person in charge I take full responsibility for what happened. It was my responsibility to make sure such things don't happen, they did anyway, and I take responsibility for that. As soon as I became aware of this I took steps to assure they never happen again. But, having said that, I have no independent recollection of personally having anything to do with the events (meetings, memos, emails, orders, statements, etc) you mention.”

Terms like “no independent recollection” are particularly useful when the questions center on matters in which you suspect confirming evidence may exist or is likely to surface later in the investigation.

When confronted with proof of prior knowledge, you can go back to your original answer;

“I believe I testified that I had no independent knowledge. Of course, at some point I learned about it by reading of it or being told about by others. But until then, as I testified under oath earlier, I had no independent -- that is personal -- knowledge of the matter.”

If asked who told you, you reply, “I don't recall.” If you want to get fancy you can throw that question back at the questioner;

“But if you know you know and can refresh my memory on that maybe we can move past this issue.”

Such a reply, while appearing pretty checky under the circumstances, is actually a safe gambit, since you know that no one told you, that you knew all along – something your questioner can't prove.

How sweet is that? “I don't recall” -- the lie that cannot be proven. No one can look inside your head and prove or disprove the state of your memory. So say it as often as you must to keep your ass out of jail -- “I don't recall.” It's a dodge that, while it may wear thin with prosecutors, is the gift that keeps giving for the guilty.


3) The “You know I am precluded from answering...” Gambit

This technique only works if you can credibly claim to be in possession of state secrets or privileged executive matters.

When using this technique it is extremely important that you appear “pained” that you cannot simply answer the question. As you “struggle” with your response be sure to insinuate that your answer, were you free to provide it, would fully support your claim of innocence.

“Sir, there is nothing I would love more than to answer that question. But, as you know, I am legally precluded from doing so.”

This technique, if properly deployed, not only protects inconvenient truths, but can recast you from suspected perp to hostage of circumstances beyond your control. (“If only I were free to answer...”)

A variant on this gambit is the “I can't answer that because it involves a matter that part of a pending investigation,” technique. This can be used by those of you involved some way in law enforcement or law enforcement agencies.

There are two “pending investigation” dodges.

1) “I can't discuss anything that's currently under investigation.'
2) “That's a part of a matter from which I am recused.

Those of you working in law enforcement, including the Dept of Justice, are in a prime position to employ this technique to your benefit. If you have prior knowledge that someone is fixing to put you under oath about something you'd prefer not being asked under oath, simply open an internal “investigation” into the matter. If that isn't enough, recuse yourself from that investigation too. Now you've erected two firewalls between having to decide whether to tell the truth and go jail, or commit perjury and go to jail. you and telling the truth.


4)Taking the Fifth

This is you last-resort gambit. When someone refuses to answer, “because it may incriminate me,” it's a surefire way to appear guilty as sin. So, use this gambit only when techniques 1 through 3 are unavailable to you.

Such circumstances may include:

• When hard evidence has already been presented that proves you did it.
• When your co-conspirators up the chain of command warn you that any reduced punishment you might negotiate in return for your testimony against them, will pale in comparison to what they'll do to you when they they get their hands on you.
• When your co-conspirators up the chain of command can credibly assure you that be “taken care of” in return for your silence.

One final rule of thumb to keep in mind. The old saying, “The truth shall set you free,” is misleading as it ONLY applies when the “particulars” of your case allow it.

Sometimes the truth will NOT set you free, quite the opposite. In such circumstances you need to avoid telling the truth as though your freedom depends on it... which it likely does.


(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.